Quick Hire, Dire Consequences
I hired Callie too quickly. It was 1997 and my technology company was growing like wildfire in the SAP software boom. I couldn’t hire fast enough and when Callie walked into my office with a pristine resume, amazing references and exactly the right experience, I didn’t hesitate to call H/R and tell them to sign her up! I paid to move her from her home in California to our office in Dallas, we ran her through a hasty onboarding process, handed her an American Express card and within two weeks, she was working with one of our largest clients. Seemingly, Callie was doing a great job and the client was happy. We had a team on site and her manager said she was quiet and reserved but she got the work done and didn’t cause any trouble. No drama. Great hire!
The Big Event
Not so fast… Six weeks after Callie started, she didn’t show up for work one Monday morning. She didn’t call in and around noon, her manager called her and the phone just rang and rang. No answer, no voice mail. That’s odd, we thought. On Tuesday morning it happened again – she didn’t show up, didn’t call in and our calls went unanswered.
By Wednesday when she didn’t show up, we were starting to get worried. We thought maybe something had happened to her. So her manager drove over to her apartment to see if she was okay. And when he arrived, she had moved out. No forwarding address. The apartment manager knew nothing about her departure. Poof! She was gone. Very strange…
Unfortunately, it was the following Monday before anyone thought to check her American Express card. I had given Callie an American Express card for travel expenses as needed. We all travelled a lot, their name is on the card, I pay the bill. According to company policy, the card was only to be used for company business purposes and expenditures required approval from her manager. But Callie obviously had other plans. She had been from New York to San Francisco with pit stops in Chicago and New Orleans, flying first class, staying at lovely hotels, having fabulous nights on the town – all on her corporate American Express card!
It could have been worse. In 1997, you couldn’t put a limit on an American Express card. It was a differentiator back then – no limits, but you must pay your bill in full every month. Also in 1997, you couldn’t put an alert on a credit card. That technology didn’t exist yet, so we had no way of knowing what Callie was doing. So yes, it could have been worse. But it was bad enough. By the time I called American Express a week after her disappearance, Callie had racked up $24,000 on her corporate Amex card. And now I was holding the bill and she had disappeared!
I contacted the police in Dallas and spoke to a very kind man who gently broke the bad news to me. Callie hadn’t broken the law. The credit card was in her name, so she was completely within her legal rights to use the card for anything she wanted. Callie simply broke our company policy by using the card for personal use, so I didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. I was responsible to pay the bill!
The kind policeman gave me a checklist of recommendations for what to do next. It wasn’t a very promising list, but I started at the top and worked my way down. First on the list – run a background check. I had never run a background check on an employee before. Turns out Callie had served time for fraud, she had claimed bankruptcy twice, she had credit cards maxed out all over the place. She was a complete financial train wreck! I can only imagine her excitement when I handed her an American Express card with her name on it. She must have celebrated and started planning her great vacation that night. What a gift!
A private detective agency offered to help me find Callie on a contingency basis. After a year of stake-outs at her parents’ house on holidays, we called off the search. We never found her. I had to pay the bill.
Lessons Learned
- Run a background check on people before you hire them. This goes for employees and contract workers, full-time and part-time. The cost is low, it’s quick and easy online, and it will keep me from hiring another Callie!
- Have a smart credit card policy. With today’s technology, it’s easy to set-up alerts for expenditures over a set amount. It’s also easy to put a limit on a credit card. Today, someone in our accounting department sees every charge within seconds after it’s made. I periodically swoop and spot check too.
- Only people with a proven track record and some tenure get a credit card. Today, people have to work for the company at least a year before they get a credit card.
- Don’t rush to hire. Callie had flown to our corporate office for one day of interviews before we hired her. I was in too big a hurry to get a qualified body in a seat to really vet her properly. Now we have multiple stages of interviews, on multiple days with multiple people. We also run personality assessments on certain positions.
Links
Background checks are available here at a reasonable rate – https://www.goodhire.com/
Tony Robbins offers a free DISC personality assessment that includes a values profile here – https://www.tonyrobbins.com/disc/.
Submitted by entrepreneur John C., Raleigh, NC
